'BBC Betrayal'

'The Thunderer' thunders:

The Times view on Tiggy Legge-Bourke and Panorama: BBC Betrayal

The corporation treated Princes William and Harry’s former nanny disgracefully

That the former nanny to Princes William and Harry should have been defamed by a false rumour that she had become pregnant by Prince Charles is scandalous. That this rumour should have emanated from the BBC is appalling. And that in order to extract an apology from the corporation she has had to wait a quarter of a century and take it to court is beyond belief.

Tiggy Legge-Bourke, as she was called when she worked for the royal family, was a victim of a scheme cooked up by Martin Bashir, a BBC reporter, in 1995 to persuade Princess Diana that those around her were in league with her husband and conspiring against her. Bashir hoped this would persuade the princess to grant an interview to the BBC’s Panorama programme.

The plan involved spreading a false rumour that Ms Legge-Bourke, now known as Alexandra Pettifer, had had an abortion as a result of an affair with Prince Charles. According to a joint statement by Pettifer and the BBC, released as part of a court settlement, Princess Diana believed this rumour; not even the sharing of private medical information would persuade her it was untrue. Ms Pettifer says that her life was scarred by it. Ms Pettifer was one of many harmed by Bashir’s wicked scheme, most notably the princess and her family. Prince William said last year, when Lord Dyson’s report into the deceit and cover-up was published, “it brings indescribable sadness to know that the BBC’s failures contributed significantly to [my mother’s] fear, paranoia and isolation that I remember from those final years with her”.

Other victims included those brave enough to question Bashir’s methods. Matt Wiessler, a graphic designer who became suspicious about how his work was being used by the reporter, was never allowed to work for the BBC again. Mark Killick, a Panorama producer, was fired 24 hours after raising concerns about how Bashir had got that interview, and was subsequently defamed.

The financial cost to the BBC is considerable. It is to pay Ms Pettifer £200,000 in damages; it has paid Commander Patrick Jephson, Princess Diana’s former private secretary, £100,000, and Mr Killick £50,000; last year it agreed a settlement with Mr Wiessler worth potentially £750,000. Lord Dyson’s review cost £1.4 million, and the BBC has paid £1.5 million to a charity chosen by the royal family.

The cost to the corporation’s reputation is incalculable. At a time when the rise of streaming platforms is undermining the BBC’s economic raison d’être, one of the main justifications for its continued financing through the licence fee is a moral one. The BBC should represent, at home and to the rest of the world, the highest standards in broadcasting. In the lies told and the pain caused in the making of this programme, it has fallen far from that aspiration.

Tim Davie, the BBC’s director-general, took the opportunity of the settlement with Ms Pettifer to apologise to her, to the Prince of Wales and to William and Harry. The Panorama programme, he said, would never be screened again, in Britain or elsewhere. After many years of near-silence from the corporation’s leaders, Davie’s profuse apology is welcome, but it is not enough. The BBC has yet to come clean about who was to blame for the cover-up of Bashir’s duplicity. If it is to regain the moral authority that a public-service broadcaster should enjoy, it needs to do so now.

Back to the 1640s at the Beeb

Who are the Roundheads and who are the Cavaliers in the latest BBC civil war over former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan, after he was invited back to commentate for the BBC on the third Test against New Zealand at Headingley?

Last year, if you recall, Michael Vaughan was accused of racism over an alleged comment in 2009 and immediately dropped by the BBC. The Muslim man accusing him had made antisemitic comments but was quickly forgiven by all.

But Michael's now back at the Beeb and what The Guardian calls “an in-house diversity group at the BBC” aren't happy.

To put it mildly.

This diversity group of impartial BBC types have a name, namely The BBC Sport BAME Advisory Group & 5 Live Diversity Group [I kid ye not], and they've impartially written to their BBC colleagues talking of “Azeem Rafiq’s gut wrenching and triggering testimony”...

[...and I kid ye not again, these BBC people really did use the ultimate woke word 'triggering' seriously there!...]

...and they've demanded that Michael Vaughan be removed because, although they “appreciate that there are elements of detail that can’t be shared about his reinstatement and that he is innocent until proven guilty”, it's “damaging, embarrassing and unsettling...to many colleagues across BBC Sport, BBC Radio 5 Live, and the wider BBC as a whole”.

Time, perhaps, to call to the witness stand the famous former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie with a tweet in response to this:

The BBC's diversity group sent an email to ALL staff complaining at the "excruciating and unbearable" decision to continue using Michael Vaughan on TMS. Vaughan denies a racism charge by Azeem Rafiq. Who gave permission to the BAME group to send out the email? Just bullying.

Nevertheless, The Times says that MV's position at the BBC is “under review” as a result.

The top comments below the Times piece aren't in the BBC diversity agitators' favour though:

• Seems they believe in the guilty until proven innocent cancel culture?
• The BBC "in-house diversity group" - All diversity is welcome, apart from diversity of thinking.
• He has been found guilty on two counts, of being a) white and b) a man.

It ain't over till the fat lady sings

However cerebral and dispassionate we think we are, I contend that at heart we are all influenced by tribalist instincts. ‘Speak for yourself!' I hear you say -  that is what I am doing.

In the case of good old Alan M. Dershowitz, I take issue with the Times quote  (which I initially mistook for Craig’s own opinion) for reasons that might very well (in the circs quite reasonably) be dismissed as tribal. I contend that the quoted article is susceptible to being unduly weaponised by those of us who are apt to take the reflexively anti-BBC stance that can easily run away with us all.

The Times:

“Despite being personally involved in the case himself and previously being involved with Jeffrey Epstein, Professor Dershowitz was merely introduced as a “constitutional lawyer”, and someone who had been brought on to give “more analysis”. Moreover, his BBC interviewer, Ben Boulos, failed to challenge him in any way when he used the platform granted to him by the BBC to try to discredit Virginia Giuffre, the woman accusing both him and Prince Andrew.

Alan Dershowitz

“Let me be clear: I never met Virginia Giuffre, who is now 36 years old. There is documented evidence that until she met her lawyers in 2014, Giuffre never accused me.... In one email, a well-known journalist urged her to include my name because of my fame, writing that although there is "no proof " that Dershowitz had sex with you, he is a "good name for your pitch." Giuffre then included me, but as someone who she met and did not have sex with.

Full disclosure. I am tribally predisposed to align with Dersh. His book The case For Israel  (You can now get it online for only £3.99!) influenced and substantiated my own (some might say pathetic) attempts to defend Israel against the BBC’s tribal loyalty to the Palestinian cause. 

Using partisan witnesses without ‘full disclosure” is one of our principal and ongoing accusations re BBC bias, but it is hardly fair to imply that the BBC failed to fully disclose Derchowitz’s partiality as he was “merely introduced as a constitutional lawyer.” 

Well, indeed he was “personally involved in the case himself“ ...... as a constitutional (Jeffrey Epstein’s) lawyer!  

He didn’t pretend otherwise; see Craig’s detailed transcription.

Alan Dershowitz: Well, I think the most important thing, particularly for British viewers, is that the government was very careful who it used as witnesses. It did not use as a witness the woman who accused, for example, Prince Andrew, accused me, accused many other people, because the government didn't believe she was telling the truth. In fact, she, Virginia Giuffre, was mentioned in the trial as somebody who brought young people to Epstein for him to abuse.

I do get it. I get what they are saying here. However, for readers of this blog, don’t let’s fall into the trap of criticising the BBC for any and everything it does and every move it makes. Perhaps, granting ‘the enemy’ a platform is ‘merely’ Tim Davies’s way of redressing the imbalance. (I don’t actually believe that by the way. It’s my flippancy talking)

Ah!  A timely update from the BBC News Press Team in the form of an apology for giving a platform to the guilty-until-proven-innocent Alan Dershowitz -  well, back to square one.

Let us never forget Carl Beech. Could Virginia Giuffre be a fantasist? Could she be a bit on the ‘flakey’ side? Hmm. Carl Beech’s unsubstantiated allegations hung over Leon Brittan’s grave and the Maxwell story isn’t over yet. Plenty of fat ladies still waiting to sing.

Yazidi-phobia

A five-year old Yazidi girl’s Islamic State killer has been convicted of genocide in an historic trial in Germany. 

There are certain things I read in The Times's account of his conviction that I didn't read in the BBC's account, the most important being the name of the child: Reda. 

I don't know why the BBC didn't think to humanise her by including it. 

The Times also tells us that IS, among all the other wicked things they did to Reda and her mother, ''forced them to practise Islam', something the BBC also omits to mention. 

And, of course, in standard BBC practice, IS are ''militants'' while for The Times they are ''terrorists''. 

At least the BBC reported the case. The Yazidis have largely been forgotten. One of my favourite historians, Tom Holland, has done his best to help remind us of their fate and is always worth reading on the matter. On reading the shocking story that a school board in Toronto, Canada withdrew support for events featuring the memoir of Nadia Murad, the Yazidi woman who was enslaved by IS, because it could "promote Islamophobia", he wrote: 

What about the Yazidi-phobia that led the Islamic State to attempt the genocide of the Yazidis: a crime that is not only in danger of being forgotten in the West, but - it seems - is now actively being covered up?

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics"

  

The BBC's home editor Mark Easton has an advocate's way with statistics. 

On Wednesday's News at Ten he made this statement:

There aren't more asylum seekers asking for sanctuary in Britain.

By Thursday's News at Ten - which began with the statement “Boatloads of desperation continue to wash up on Kent's beaches. Only a fraction of asylum seekers in Europe choose the UK” - Mark Easton added this, almost in passing:

Figures released today indicate asylum applications at their highest level for six years, at 37,000.

And there's a canny bit of jiggery-pokery here. The Times reports the same figures and says:

Asylum claims are higher than the number recorded at the peak of the 2015-16 European migration crisis at the height of the Syrian civil war, when applications hit 36,546.

That asylum claims are comparable or even slightly higher than they were in 2015 - at the very height of the European migrant crisis - is quite something.

It's all about how you frame it obviously. The Times's headline couldn't be further from Mark Easton's 'frame': 

Asylum claims at highest level for 20 years as Channel crossings surge

I'm intrigued though about what was going on throughout 2001. 🤔 Ah, yes.

Moving on...and on [as 'job done']

The BBC may have moved on but The Times is still doing proper reporting:

Liverpool bomber ‘reverted to Islam’ in months before attack

The Liverpool hospital bomber had reverted to practising Islam in the months before his attack, investigators believe. One theory is that Emad Al Swealmeen, who had converted to Christianity after his arrival in Britain, was trying to atone for apostasy which is considered to be punishable by death by some Islamic scholars.'

That, literally, was my best guess as soon as I heard his name and began hearing all the 'Christian convert' stuff-and-nonsense that the BBC was pumping out over and over again - particularly on hearing that he was living with other 'asylum seekers'. 

'You won't hear that on the BBC' used to be a half-quip, but no longer. You really won't hear that on the BBC - at least if the BBC has anything to do with it.

I've checked TVEyes. BBC TV, across its various TV channels, has only mentioned Al Swealmeen for a few seconds a very few times in recent days, and always in connection to ball bearings - just a sentence or two at most at a time.  

Stonewalling

  

Following on directly from Richard Morrison's closing question in the previous post...

BBC DG Tim Davie doesn't appear to be brave enough yet.

A recent report in Times reports that the BBC is still refusing to distance itself from the increasingly controversial campaign group, Stonewall.

That controversy partly comes from claims that Stonewall has, in recent years, transitioned from being a benign movement campaigning for gay rights into a malign 'woke' force advocating for trans extremism at the expense of gay/lesbian people and women. 

But, particularly as regards the BBC, it's also because Stonewall advocates a 'diversity programme' which it wants all organisations to adopt.

Critics say that Stonewall tries to shame those who don't adopt it.

And, to a remarkable degree, hordes of nervous-if-not-terrified large organisations duly adopted it.

And then came the opposite reaction. The Equality and Human Rights Commission pulled out. And Channel 4 pulled out. And then Ofcom pulled out.

And that's when things become relevant to this blog because despite the people who ultimately rule on BBC impartiality, Ofcom, withdrawing themselves from the scheme on the grounds that their involvement with it risked compromising Ofcom's impartiality, the licence fee-funded BBC is sticking with it.

Therefore, we're in the bizarre situation where the BBC's main regulator drops Stonewall because they say involvement with Stonewall compromises their impartiality, but their charge - the impartiality-proclaiming BBC - won't or daren't follow their lead.

The BBC has, of course, put out statements. 

None address the main point of course.

The questions on my mind are: 

[a] Are BBC executives too scared of offending the 'woke' elements in their own organisation and/or too fearful of the blowback on Twitter [which the vast majority of the population ignores] to do the obvious thing?

[b] If they are, what will Ofcom do about it, given that they feel involvement with Stonewall puts organisations at a ''risk of perceived bias'' and they ultimately rule on matters of BBC impartiality ?

[c] Will Tim Davie 'grow a pair' [if that phrase it still allowed], and step in and withdraw the BBC from this scheme and distance the BBC from Stonewall?

Unsurprising news

Richard Morrison, writing in The Times, notes the result of a survey conducted among nearly 200 TV programme-makers and executives at the Edinburgh TV Festival, doubtless involving large numbers from the BBC. 

They were asked to divulge their views about a variety of social issues and the results were compared to a poll of nearly 3,000 TV viewers.

Unsurprisingly, while the majority of TV viewers were 'proud of the UK', thought political correctness has 'gone too far' and are NOT 'ashamed of the British Empire', the vast majority of TV-makers and executives thought the opposite. 

Only 27 per cent of TV executives and programme-makers are 'proud of the UK', only 23 per cent think political correctness has 'gone too far' and just 19 percent are NOT 'ashamed of the British Empire'. [And my guess is that most of those aren't the ones working for the BBC].

As Mr Morrison says, that's a ''sociopolitical gulf between them and the majority of the public''. 

He talks of ''TV’s mad scramble to be woker-than-woke'', with independent producers ''having to supply evidence of cast and crew diversity when they pitch ideas to networks'' and ''storylines for soaps, serious dramas and even Doctor Who being manipulated so that issues can be given far greater prominence than they would if the dramas strictly mirrored reality'' and ''current affairs programmes and documentaries being skewered to favour the viewpoint of what’s usually labelled the metropolitan liberal elite''.

But he suspects this doesn’t happen ''because programme-makers are passionate about championing social justice'', given that ''most of them live in Holland Park in London on salaries well north of six figures'', but that it happens ''because they are supinely following quota rules issued from above''.

What has happened, Richard Morrison argues, is that the pendulum has swung too far, 

...possibly because of the “must please management” mentality ingrained into every organisation - even one where employees imagine themselves as creative and free-thinking. Pragmatism, common sense, moderation and subtlety go out of the window. Then programme-makers find themselves way out of step with the public, and people start asking themselves why they should pay the licence fee. 

A population as stubborn as the British will never respond well to arrogant preaching or their favourite shows being hijacked to represent views they don’t hold. Quite the reverse. People switch off. Government ministers sniff blood. Views polarise and harden, and fundamentally worthwhile institutions are threatened with break-up.

And he ends with a question:

Those delegates in Edinburgh did well to expose the sociopolitical gulf between themselves and the majority of the public. Now who’s going to be brave enough, clever enough and humble enough to bridge it?

The BBC turns down a 'Times' FOI request

 

More BBC-related Freedom of Information (FoI) news tonight, courtesy of Matthew Moore of The Times...

The Times has had an FoI request rejected by the BBC - personally, by the outgoing BBC chairman no less: 

Sir David Clementi has blocked the release of the BBC’s licence fee collection strategy in one of his final acts as chairman. 

The document, understood to set out plans for maximising revenues from the compulsory levy, was approved by the BBC board last year. In response to a freedom of information request from The Times, the broadcaster confirmed that it held the paper. However, it declined to disclose it on the ground that publication would “prejudice the conduct of public affairs” and “inhibit the free and frank exchange of views”.

The BBC, despite being "free and frank", turns down an awful lot of FoI requests.

"A gaggle of blubbing, gushing, babbling groupies"

This is well-put by Gerard Baker in The Times re the inauguration of Joe Biden and the media: 

Those solemnly self-important purveyors of facts in a post-truth world were a gaggle of blubbing, gushing, babbling groupies. The BBC’s journalists, whose presence in Washington must have rivalled that of the National Guard, seem to have been given yet another holiday from their supposed obligation to impartiality as they waxed at length about the “historic” scene and its “healing” power.

Will the BBC listen?

 

The Times has published some research, with YouGov, into public perceptions of the BBC and found that "nearly half of Britons think that the BBC no longer represents their values", with a third of the public saying that in the past year "the values of the BBC has become less like theirs". 

The paper cites the BBC's coverage of Brexit and the pandemic, but I'm guessing the 'woke' stuff - their BLM coverage, the Proms debacle, etc - may have played a big part too. 

The Times says his "chimes" with unpublished research from the BBC itself "which found that residents of well-off and diverse neighbourhoods held the broadcaster in higher esteem than people from poorer and less diverse communities".

As Jon Holbrook observes, "It’s the elite v. the people - again", and this is probably borne out by the finding that 58% of those who voted for Brexit were unhappy with the BBC's stance. Us northerners aren't happy with the BBC either. 

Whenever such findings appear there's always a BBC spokesman on hand to stick his fingers in his ears, go 'la la la la la la la' loudly, and play Dr Pangloss - though this time there's a slight, unexpected concession tagged on, sanctioned by an earlier concession from DG Tim Davie:

A BBC spokesman said: “Recent research shows that people still connect with our core mission to inform, educate and entertain, and our purposes remain relevant. However, the new director-general has made it very clear that the BBC must work hard to represent a very broad section of views.”

I don't think their New Year coverage will have got 2021 off to a good start for any plans they have to start repairing the damage.

...and statistics

I read a piece by Matthew Moore in The Times yesterday noting those ex-BBC folk at Ofcom's findings that the BBC is starting to lose support among its most loyal viewers and listeners - older viewers. 

For the purposes of this blog though, it was the following which stood out for me:

Only 54 per cent of adults believe that the BBC provides impartial news and around 20 per cent rate the corporation badly for impartiality.

I must admit that I was surprised at those figures. Matthew thought they reflected badly on the BBC, but I found them unbelievably high (with the emphasis on 'unbelievably'). 

Even that dubious 54% wasn't high enough for the BBC evidently. I smiled on reading their own write-up. It didn't mention the impartiality findings at all, and just stuck to the identity stuff (as ever).

Today I read an interesting new angle on the Ofcom findings from Broadcast. Its headline reads Impartiality: BBC News slips below C5. It adds that the BBC is also now behind ITV and Sky News and Channel 4 too as far as public perceptions of impartiality go. 

Crikey! Goodness knows how to unravel those findings!

Less isolated

Here we go again. Writing a blog about BBC bias and then boasting that I don’t watch it. Well, I do watch some of it, more of which later. I have spent most of my life - say, at least half of it, being in a minority of one. (That covers opinion, ideology, ethnicity and lots of other stuff.)  Shall I name the ways? Perhaps another time.

This is leading up to one of those ‘housekeeping’ posts that bloggers have to do from time to time, usually when the comments are too sweary or too plain nasty.

Ha! I have been alone (in this blog) in supporting the lockdown strategy, one whose success is almost entirely reliant on a high degree of cooperation from the public. We know Lockdown not the only possible strategy on the table, but it’s the one that the government we voted for believes is in the country's best interest. 

Our experiment with Disqus seems to have deprived us of our most prolific commenter, but I think I’m right in saying that most of our regulars disagree with me on this topic.  I haven’t particularly engaged in the debate because (as I keep having to repeat) I am still of the opinion that it’s “too soon to know’.  I think the time for dogmatic criticism of the Government is not now. I am Mr Undecided and I’m sticking with it.

So, what’s all this a preamble to? It must be something. Okay, it’s Melanie Phillips. I don’t agree with her on absolutely everything - apart from her every word on Israel - but she too is in favour of the Lockdown approach. 

Look at this! The Times(£):

“Like every other country suffering from this pandemic, Britain faces a horrible choice between protecting the economy and safeguarding life and health. Its rate of death and serious illness from Covid-19 has been higher than most countries. The reason for that, along with other necessary criticisms about the government’s handling of this crisis, should wait until all the evidence is in.”

If you haven’t got access to the Times, I’m sorry. I don’t feel entitled to reproduce entire articles. (I did it once but I think I got away with it.)

“Yet among people for whom damage to the economy outweighs all other considerations, there’s no acknowledgement of Johnson’s complex balancing act. For such people, lockdown must end immediately. Some of them claim, moreover, that there never was any need for it in the first place. The virus, they say (with scant regard for either humanity or settled facts) poses no serious threat because it only kills relatively few old people or those who would have died this year anyway. By contrast, they say, Sweden has curbed the virus while suffering far fewer deaths than Britain, Italy or Spain without locking down its population, thus protecting its economy.”

Anyway, I feel a little less isolated now. 

As for the Disqus thing, I think the jury’s still out. We were hoping to attract a wider, livelier and more diverse disqussion below the line. We’ll wait and see what transpires. 

Moonlighting

The Times continues to be in hot pursuit of "moonlighting" BBC figures. 

Today they are pointing the finger of accusation at Mishal Husain for taking part in "at least ten private events" organised by the Norwegian gas and oil industry. 

(I know, 'The Norwegian gas and oil industry' and 'Mishal Husain' aren't phrases I'd have naturally placed together either!)

According to the paper, environmentalists are complaining that by "profiteering from polluters" she's risking "the BBC's reputation for impartiality", with someone from Extinction Rebellion adding, "This is yet another uncomfortable example of the insidious relationship between fossil fuel companies and the media." 

The Times adds, however, "There is no suggestion that Husain breached BBC guidelines." 

Indeed. Lots of BBC presenters and journalists moderate at / speak at all manner of conferences, from Evan Davis to Martin Croxall, from John Simpson to Emily Maitlis, Yolande Knell to Mark Urban, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. (Roger Harrabin, the BBC's environment analyst, for instance, has been doing so for some thirty years now.) They are fully entitled to do so. 

So what's the paper's beef with Mishal Husain?:

...However, her willingness to accept money from an industry under fire for its environmental impact raises questions about the potential conflict of interest. She is frequently required to cover climate change on the Today programme and was sent to Sweden in December to interview Greta Thunberg.

Hmm, but surely the problem won't arise unless her coverage of climate change on the Today programme turns out to be demonstrably pro-fossil fuels. (Has it been?). Her interview with Greta Thunberg, for one, didn't strike me as being even remotely unsympathetic and she didn't slyly argue for fossil fuels once during it. 

In fact, I'm much more worried about "the BBC's reputation for impartiality" when the BBC's Newsnight broadcast an investigative report in partnership with Greenpeace. That struck me as genuinely problematic. 

Another bad day at the office

February is continuing where January left off with another bad day for the BBC.  The Times has obtained internal figures from the BBC via a FOI request. It turns out that 493 staff - many of them senior  - are paid above the maximum allowed in their salary bands - "a situation that is meant to be permitted only under exceptional circumstances". The paper's Matthew Moore adds that this revelation "will increase tensions at the BBC, where 450 news staff are soon due to lose their jobs in a drive to save £80 million". Oh dear.

Horses have bolted

BBC to slash 250 jobs across news division   The Times (£)

The scale of the redundancy programme will horrify staff at a time of unprecedented uncertainty for the national broadcaster. However, bosses need to save £80 million and believe that the corporation cannot win back public support on issues such as revoking free TV licences for over-75s without demonstrating a commitment to delivering value for the public. “The BBC has got to show that it is doing some tough stuff,” one source said.

Call off the rottweilers, Lord Hall tells BBC interviewers  The Times (£)

Lord Hall’s remarks, at the launch of the Edelman Trust Barometer, indicate that the BBC is reassessing the value of traditional “gotcha” interviews, in which presenters seek to trap ministers into gaffes or U-turns.

 […]

(John Humphrys) lamented that the success of the 8.10am Today interview was wrongly judged on whether it had unsettled a politician and trapped them into saying something they did not intend. “I’m delighted he [Lord Hall] agrees with me”, Humphrys said yesterday. 

Jeremy Paxman, who questioned politicians on Newsnight for 25 years , expressed his approval less diplomatically. Asked for his response to the director-general’s comments, he replied: “I like Tony Hall. But he really must stop spouting the bleeding obvious.”

Hmm. Quite a few pots and kettles calling each other 'persons of colour.'

Our Girl

It’s a new dawn!

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me!  One way your body tells you you’re getting older is through the medium of coffee. When I was younger its laxative, diuretic and insomnia-inducing effects were barely noticeable, but as time goes by, it makes me need to pee all the time. While constant coffee stimulates you and keeps you focused, the trips to the bog, (oh, you call it the loo) are such a nuisance, interrupting the mental flow. (While facilitating the physical flow if you like) So, where was I?

Oh yes. Does anyone know how many times you can reheat a cup of coffee in the microwave before it becomes carcinogenic? asking for a friend.

********

To readers of this blog who are uncomfortable with one particular theme that runs through this blog like a stick’o’rock, you know who you are, kindly let me expand an idea. 

Obviously, Craig’s prolific output exposes multiple and varied examples of the BBC’s bias. His contributions outnumber my own by a factor of about ninety to one. (I haven’t done the maths.) Although our themes often overlap, it’s fair to say that I do tend to focus on the constant anti-Israel and anti-Jewish messages the BBC sends out. 

This applies to both Craig and me; our frustration with the BBC has to be articulated on this blog. The blog has to act as a vehicle for venting one’s spleen to a degree that one could hardly get away with in real life. 

If I come across to you as merely an obsessive ‘Israel Firster’, I’ve totally failed. (How many real fanatics of that kind have you come across? I bet there are far more entrenched, reflexively anti- Israel bloggers and journalists out there doing their utmost to inflame racial prejudice than all the so-called Israel-Firsters and Mossad-employed hasbara-proselytising pawns they fondly imagine are plotting world domination, put together.)

Had Craig and I been more technically proficient we might have introduced gadgets and widgets so that our Israel related material could be protected behind a tag, so you’d have to ‘opt-in’ rather than have it dished up in your face whether you like it or not. That preamble was leading up to something. 

I’m told that there’s something ‘Talmudic’ about my obsessiveness. Genetically Talmudic! But I keep seeing massive bias in the reporting of the latest Israel related scandal. The rape!

The way the media keeps emphasising “Israeli”. Compare this with the way the media collectively obscured the ethnicity of the ‘men’ involved in our homegrown grooming gang scandal. Notice the language -  that they refer to the Israelis, whose ages, as reported, range from 15 to 20 - as ‘men’, yet the girl is described as a ‘teenager’ or a ’nineteen-year-old.’

The media, not just the Beeb, suddenly seems to be interested in the ‘mental health of the ’British girl’ in accord with the campaign currently being promoted by the ‘young royals’. The emphasis on her p.t.s.d. and her 18-hour sleepathons are undoubtedly valid concerns, but I wonder, was there quite so much attention given to the mental health and the p.t.s.d. suffered by the traumatised young female victims of those Pakistani / Muslim men?  And the girls who weren’t required to testify because they’d be considered too unreliable to make credible witnesses?

On the Today Programme, the Beeb decided to re-voice the mother’s statement. An “actress” spoke the words, using received English (rather than whatever accent a Derbyshire resident might actually have) they claimed, ‘to protect her identity” (why is her identity a secret?)  

My immediate thought was that they chose it to project a suitable image. In particular, that of a middle-class, respectable family.  But then, I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Last but not least, the photograph that is now being widely used to illustrate “Israeli triumphalism.” This shot captured the moment when the father’s arm is raised as he greets his son with a hug, and very likely with some relief. That shot is cropped, to emote (I contend) Israeli malevolence.

This isn’t my final verdict. The metaphorical jury’s still out, as is the actual one. It’s just that these questions are playing on my mind.

Let’s go back to the beginning. I’ve looked at the earlier reports in The Times. The atmosphere changes. Initially far more objective, the reporting is now overtly emotive; unequivocally protective of ‘our’ side.  

Anshel Pfeffer, in The Times now introduces a whole new Israel-bashing angle.  Cyprus rape case: Hints that acquitted Israeli boys have friends in high places. I don’t quite know what to make of that! Well, I do, but I might be falling into an elephant trap if I speculate too soon.

You can follow the progress of the story in the ’related articles’ section.  In August the reporting is factual. Israeli men cleared of raping British teenager in Cyprus should be prosecuted for sex video, say lawyers.

“The Israelis, aged 16 to 20, were released from custody last month in Ayia Napa, Cyprus, after their lawyers supplied video of the 19-year-old woman and three of the men having sex. 

The authorities said the evidence disproved her allegations that she had been pinned down, raped by all 12 and also slapped. She is in custody facing a charge of public mischief and could be jailed for up to a year if found guilty. 

The 34-second video was leaked to the website Pornhub and featured prominently on its homepage this month, which criminal lawyers spoken to by The Times say was an act of so-called revenge porn, which under European Union law was an invasion of her privacy that subjected her to humiliation.

However, the whole approach has hardened, and the leading article "Rough Justice" in today’s paper quite openly advocates for the girl. 

There are two separate issues here, which are intertwined, but they still have to be treated separately because of the way the court has dealt with the case. The first one is the rape itself. 

This has echoes of the infamous Brett Kavanaugh - Christine Blasey-Ford trial. The credibility or otherwise of the witnesses is in question. In that case and in this, the truth might lie somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. Who knows?

Are we looking at a studious, middle-class, horse-riding young woman, up for a mini gap-yeah adventure, but cruelly abused and humiliated by her new boyfriend - then held down and passed around amongst his mates, and revenge-porned, if that’s a term? Was she traumatised, gang-raped and then coerced by shoddy and possibly corrupt police practice into retracting her original statement? 

Do all Israeli men believe they are superior to British whores? Or just these youths. “Meat”, as Jack Straw once said. Or, was this British girl a fun-loving, promiscuous, sexually incontinent tourist who, after the event, was horrified and humiliated by the dissemination of video? I don’t think it’s possible for the likes of me and you to know.

However, this case is no longer about 'the' rape or rapes. It has been refined. Now it’s supposed to be only about the girl’s honesty. 

“She has now been found guilty of “public mischief”, a crime that is punishable by a prison sentence of up to a year and by a fine equivalent to £1,500.”

If only the alleged rapists hadn’t been Israelis!  Everything would have been different then. For a start, the British media wouldn’t have been nearly so interested. If she’s found guilty, her punishment might be relatively minor, in material terms. The BBC has even reported that a Cypriot lawyer has called for leniency. We must wait and see how the mother’s plea for boycotting Cyprus as a tourist destination plays out. 

I wouldn’t dream of downplaying the trauma the girl is suffering, or the damage that has already been done to her future.

My point is that the ongoing reporting in the Times alone, never mind the sensationalising Mail, gives contradictory versions of the event in its own paper. According to one report, forensic evidence supports her claim, while a few lines later another expert states the opposite. Since August, the reporting seems to have evolved. From a relatively objective account, we have a gradual metamorphosis to outright advocacy for the girl.

Taken as a whole it amounts to another not so subtle example of Israel-bashing that contributes, drip by drip, to the accelerated Jew-bashing we are witnessing today. That is just from the Times. The BBC, which is obliged to be impartial is far, far worse. 

The flight of the young

The Times reports today that:

BBC viewing among young people is “dangerously close to the brink” as audiences switch to streaming services, according to an internal document. 

Leaked data shows that less than half of people aged 16 to 34 now watch any of its main broadcast television channels — BBC One, BBC Two and BBC Four — in an average week. 

The reach of these channels among young viewers has fallen from 51.9 per cent to 46.6 per cent in a year. Only 40.7 per cent of people in the age group now watch BBC One each week, according to the document obtained by the trade magazine Broadcast. 

BBC executives see the flight of young audiences as an existential crisis, undermining the moral case for a universal licence fee.

How long can you justify a system whereby everybody who has a TV has to pay to fund a particular set of TV and radio channels, that is the question.

Mid-week mixed bag

The Times online hits my inbox at various times of the morning - I’m not complaining - but it’s interesting (to me) that this morning, at about 6:45 am the number of comments below Hugo Rifkind’s piece (£) about Boris Johnson and Donald Trump had already reached three-figures, yet there were none at all below Melanie Phillips’s excellent article (£) about a sensitive topic - the siting of the proposed Holocaust memorial and learning centre near the Houses of Parliament.

I’m about to make a superficial kind of statement, but here goes: I live hundreds of miles away from the capital and won’t experience the feeling of being visually assaulted by a grim-looking structure in the way that perhaps regular passers-by might - according to their architectural preferences. Nor will I be dismayed at the thought of a dramatic and unwanted change to my personal environment in the way I was when I first saw the hideous and incongruous plans for a carbuncle of a supermarket in my patch, yet I have to admit that now it’s real and it’s there, in yer face, I’m used to it and I have been known to pop in for a few bits of shopping without giving it a second thought. (I do have some second thoughts, but they are fleeting and getting fleetinger by the week)

What’s the point I was about to make? Oh yes, it was that the Times must have held back before publishing the comments - weeding out the virulently antisemitic ones presumably - but now they’re here. And largely supportive I’m pleased to see.

I think Melanie has nailed it again. Like her splendid analysis of President Trump’s remarks about US Jews who vote Democrat (loyalty and antisemitism) her sensitive response to the Holocaust Museum debacle is spot on. 

At the risk of feeding people who like to complain that any negative thoughts about Jews, Israel or anything remotely connected has become unsayable (because ‘antisemitism’) and that the whole antisemitism business has had a chilling effect on free speech, or that ‘you can’t say anything these days” - all of that - I can see that there is an element of truth in there. 

I can also see that it’s a lot easier to dismiss all negativity as prejudice at a time when it takes a huge effort to clarify any subtle and nuanced position, especially in consideration of the battle against intransigence and ideological resistance that comes with the territory.

However, handing ammunition to the enemy works both ways. The chilling effect is totally reversible like a coat you can wear inside out if you want. Now you can’t say anything is antisemitic just as you can’t say anything isn’t, without causing offence. It’s a shame that some commenters felt the need to call Melanie Phillips ‘brave’ for saying it what she said. 

There was one little segment that touches on an unpalatable truth, which loyalty to this country makes it hard to acknowledge. 

“Even fewer are prepared to acknowledge that, despite having stood alone against Hitler in 1940 and accepting 10,000 Jewish child refugees in the 1938 Kindertransport, Britain during the Holocaust barred Jews from pre-Israel Palestine. This flagrant denial of its legal undertaking to settle the Jews in the land caused untold numbers trapped in Europe to perish. 

The very mention of this tends to provoke frenzied outbursts about Jewish anti-British terrorism at that time, as if that negates the shocking British record.

The King David Hotel affair is something that sets off an internal conflict in many supporters or defenders of Israel who aren’t fully aware of the historical and political context in which it took place. To somehow reconcile the contradictions within their consciences they settle for supporting Israel’s right to exist ‘despite the King David Hotel affair’. 

This is about clarification, not about justifying violence or terrorism - and already we’re deep into the kind of mire you can see thrashed out everywhere and anywhere that Israel-related controversies crop up. 

  

 **********

I thought I’d recommend a comment I just read on Harry’s Place. I’m so jealous. I wish Anton Deque would notice ITBB. But never mind. 

My reaction to John Wall’s article was exactly the same, but it’s AD’s remarks about the BBC that gives his comment a good bit of relevance to this blog. If reproducing this transgresses blogging etiquette I apologise most sincerely.

“Another curious piece about Brexit on Harry's Place. Having read it I cannot decide what Mr Wall's point is apart from explaining the obvious long after it entered the realm of last weeks chip's wrapper. 

"I suggest anyone goes and looks at the quartet that the B.B.C., never neutral, put up on its web page this morning to show the 'party leaders' coming together to discuss how to avoid a 'no deal'. Look at these mediocrities and ask not why but how. How do such figures become the political leadership anywhere? I have thrown away brighter light bulbs. 

"Brexit was not about a deal. There was no mention of a deal at the time of the vote and no party has a mandate for any such deal. There was no mention of 'hard' or 'soft'. The tensile strength became an issue only when the side that lost insisted on a deal. Each and every variant of this deal, regardless, has been to devise a way in which the U.K. does not shake itself self free – not from Europe, but this apparatchik United States of Europe. 

"The likelihood is that Johnson will fudge and cobble something together to save his party – pro tem. We shall then see a swarming to Farage and his far right (©B.B.C. passim) Brexit Party. It is even possible the U.K. will then have a very strange Parliament indeed, Rump Tories, Brexit, Liberal-Labour and Nationalists. 

"I watched Johnson give us his "Hugh Grant in mop wig' from the G7 press conference. Having beautifully yorked* the truly appalling Robert Peston over an invented remark Peston attributed to Trump, Johnson was asked in passing to make a comment about England's latest 'Great Escape' from the jaws of an Aussie shark; Johnson made a joke about Ben Stokes' performance being worthy of a dukedom. The B.B.C. gave this obvious joke 'Breaking News' status on its strapline. There's a certain uniformity about that dying corporations reporting of all things Brexit.

*******

I know this has already been promoted on GF’s blog, but this piece by Douglas Murray resonates. It’s all about Channel 4, which is a good deal more biased than the BBC and getting worse with every passing moment. In this piece, he asks why Boris should trust Channel 4 in response to Dorothy Byrne’s  MacTaggart lecture in which she criticises the PM and the leader of the opposition for avoiding being interviewed by the likes of Jon Snow and Cathy Newman. They’re frit, she thinks, of being held to account.

If you listen to Dorothy Byrne - her speech is all over the interweb  - you might wonder how she got to where she is today, as Reginald Perrin used to say. The comments below the YouTube version of it are a mixed bag - it seems you either love her or loathe her, but the lack of self-awareness in her guff about honesty, integrity and ‘good faith’ is staggering. 

As Douglas Murray says: (and this equally applies, across the board, to the Beeb)

“Boris Johnson may or may not be correct in choosing to avoid being interviewed by Cathy Newman or Jon Snow on a regular basis. But he is certainly right if he presumes that such an interview would not be conducted in good faith. It would be conducted by an interviewer who is known to have particular political biases.

“It is almost certainly fair to say that ‘holding Boris Johnson to account’ would consist of haranguing him constantly, rarely allowing him to get more than a sentence out uninterrupted, accusing him of terrible things to his face, trying to embarrass him and – dream of dreams – getting him to say something embarrassing or wrong which could subsequently be reported across the world’s press as ‘Boris Johnson exposed as liar in Channel 4 News interview’. That is the story they want, and there is ever-less effort at Channel 4 and other channels to disguise that fact.

Slanting the story

Emily, looking even more orange than the President

(Following on from a comment from MB on the open thread...)

A throwaway remark in answer to a question got massively blown out of proportion yesterday.

On re-watching what was said at the Trump/May press conference and then comparing it to the Times journalist's subsequent write-up of it (which gives it a peculiar, hyperbolic spin), I can't help thinking that the Times report had a story in mind already and then went away and wrote it.

Here's what was said at the press conference: 

Theresa May: Francis?

Francis Elliott: Mr President, Francis Elliott from The Times. Do you agree with your ambassador that the entire economy needs to be on the table in a future trade talk, trade deal, including the NHS? And Prime Minister, are you tempted to take the President up on his word and stick around for a bit till the trade deal is done?

President Trump: I think we going to have a great trade deal, yes. I think we going to have a great and very comprehensive trade deal...

Francis Elliott: (interrupting, away from the mic, hard to hear) But what about the NHS?  But what about the NHS? Should that be on the table?

President Trump (to Mrs May): I can't hear him.

Mrs May (to President Trump): It's our National Health Service. So should the National Health Service be on the table?

President Trump: Look, I think everything with a trade deal is on the table. When you're dealing on trade everything is on the table,  so NHS or anything else, and a lot more than that. But everything will be on the table, absolutely, ok.

Mrs May: But the point about making trade deals is, of course, that both sides negotiate and come to an agreement about what should or should not be in that trade deal for the future.

A comment below the Times piece sums it up well:

In negotiation the starting point is usually that everything is on the table. Things can very soon be taken off. Theresa May, in a rare moment of spontaneity, to me made it clear in her response to Potus that the NHS was not a serious consideration in any trade talks. Watch the Press Conference - it's pretty clear.

All this nonsense about the NHS is nothing to do with politics or trade talks - it the usual embarrassing anti-Trump hysteria; the nit-picking that the media make such a meal of in order to try to discredit Trump and everything about him.

Needless to say, Emily Maitlis on Newsnight followed the media pack and gave us this characteristically loaded description of the exchange:

Perhaps the moment of greatest discomfort for hardline Brexiteers came when the US president restated that everything - including the NHS - would be up for grabs in any future US trade deal. A remark quickly slapped down by his host, Theresa May. 

(Note, incidentally, the trademark "hardline" in "hardline Brexiteers" there). 

And Radio 4's news bulletin on The World Tonight began like this:

Donald Trump has said the United States is committed to a "phenomenal" trade deal with the UK after Brexit but the US President insisted that everything should be on the table during negotiations, including the NHS.

That makes it sound as if Donald Trump was insisting, above all, that the NHS should be on the table - which he wasn't. That's BBC spin.

Now, is this just bad reporting or is it biased reporting as well? Or both?